Rosary salesman to take top SBC blog prize?

A few years ago I gave iMonk and the Pyromaniacs the BDBO award for the blog fight of the year. 

iMonk wins for fighting again in 2009.  

But he didn’t win this fight. 
He never had a prayer.

Micheal is after the coveted SBC 2009  Blog Madness award and the attendant bragging rights.
He wins and he gets bibles with the bragging rights.  Six of them. Latest translation even.
It’s a matter of denominational honour. 

I have never seen anyone smack him down verbally with the deftness of Everyday Mommy.
Never.
Not only did she flatten him, she took most of his readers down with a native passive aggressive sarcasm, cutting wit and the mandatory SBC underlying meanness. 
  
She should be getting the blog award, not Michael.

It wasn’t even close to a fair fight, she had him KO’d by the time he’d typed his first comment.
Which was the point after all.
The SBC Voices Blog Madness award only comes around once a year, and it’s do or die time.
Michael limped home to internet monk, asked for votes, played the sympathy card, the guilt card, the preacher/teacher ‘don’t make me tell you not to go over there card’ and did his mea culpa in a few very tight paragraphs.

I made the Final Four of SBC Blog Madness. I’m running strong, but it’s far from over. If I lose, it’s been a great run. I’m asking for your support ONE LAST TIME.I can buy 6 ESV Study Bibles with the gift certificates and give them to staff and students where I serve.

[Important Request: Everyday Mommy is going to do a follow up post on me, this site and a bunch of you commenters tomorrow. Let’s all do a good thing: 1) Don’t go back there. (I know. I like a good train wreck as much as the rest of you.) and 2) Don’t comment. (I know….guilty.) But let’s just not do this again. I’m so disgusted at myself that I need to be kicked.]

Oh, and if you haven’t bought a rosary from Alan, go do it. I’m quite serious. It’s heinous what my friend’s ad (and profession of faith) has been through today from people who believe none of us are Christians unless they say we are. Good grief. Will heaven be small enough?

Of course I went over and read every word.

He got a verbal beat down by a very smart and funny woman, and in Michael’s online world he is far more comfortable hanging out with the guys. He has got to be smarting. But hey, running strong.

This is about who wins the SBC Voices Blogging Madness award. 
Nothing more, nothing less.

Everyday Mommy supports the guy currently in third place and to bolster her candidate she posted about an ad Michael Spencer has on his blog. 

This is down to the wire, final round, voting ends this week and while Micheal writes about coming on strong, she has his number and goes straight for the jugular.

Everyday Mommy:

Seems that the iMonk (odd choice of moniker for a protestant) is in the lead to win the SBC Voices Blog Madness contest for best SBC blog.  Something strikes me as curious…tell me what you think.

Is the SBC in such enigmatic disarray that a guy who calls himself a monk and hocks rosaries can be in the running to win “best SBC blog”?

Go vote for Confessions of a Pastor here.  And, yes this thread is about the Internet Monk.

UPDATE:   The rosary maker is a friend of iMonk so therefore any implied endorsement of Marian worship is acceptable.

Then as usual for Southern Baptists and their internal drama and anger addictions; all hell breaks loose in the comment section over at Everyday Mommy.
And it gets hilarious.

Michael had to jump in.
I don’t know why.
But he did.
He went back for more.
And more.  
Until he lost his temper.

106 comments later Michael’s fans and the theological hard cores crawled away.
The definition of insanity is…?

Everyday Mommy mopped the floor verbally with the lot of them, called it a night and then posted this:

Dear Mr. Spencer:

The blogosphere is a funny thing. Words are funny things, too. It seems that a blog post can begin one way and suddenly swerve in a direction that was never intended. The original thought can be swallowed up in a sea of rhetoric, misunderstanding, assumption and backbiting. What did I learn tonight?

She lists what she learned, including the reality that Michael does have a serious posse which he commands when it pleases him.
Everyday mommy did have her readers try a swing, but truth is she is so quick witted she didn’t need them.

She ended with:

But, at the end of the day it is your blog and you may do as you see fit, your conscience bearing witness. I tried to leave an apology on your blog, but it was not approved. As you added my email to your spam filter I pray you’ll read this post.

In all the back and forth of defending their candidate and their theology,  did it occur to anyone that Alan  is out of work? 
Why would it?
Michael threw that one in at the last desperate moment, hoping guilt would keep him running strong. 

What chapter in the bible is the story of The Good Samaritan in again?

I would think greater good would be to pick your battles.
But I have dull wit and can’t bible thump, I’m not an SBC minister, I don’t read minds or ads.
While I do encourage anyone looking for a hand made rosary to help Mr. Creech out, the last minute guilt trip by iMonk is sad.
Everyone reading is supposed to know Alan is in a bad way. does. not. cut. it.
He tried to throw the last piece of mud. 
Guilting.
I swear SBC members get degrees in it before they get baptised or something. 

Michael will win the SBC Voice Blogging Madness award.

He’ll get to pass out those bibles he gets as his prize to his chosen students and colleagues at bible school. (I can’t write that with a straight face!)

SBC women can’t win SBC blog awards.  They can’t be smarter or funnier than SBC pastors, even when they are. Not going to happen this side of heaven.

It is also a battle between branches of the SBC.
It is about culture, earnestness, identity, egos and deep dark weeping divides.
It is about prizes and all that is awful and good about Protestantism power and human nature.
It is about being blind, which I almost am, having wiped away tears.
This is the first time ever I’ve read a SBC fight where I laughed ’til I cried.

Update: Okay, now it’s gone into nasty familar territory.
Everyday Mommy recanted her apology.

Update: Michael Spencer won The 2009 SBC Blog Madness prize.